


Comfortable Space

by scrapmetal



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Gen, Nonbinary Alphonse Elric, because if i don't write al w they pronouns i die, oh yeah also, really short character study i guess?, ya just gotta read it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-12
Updated: 2019-04-12
Packaged: 2020-01-12 04:35:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,038
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18439154
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scrapmetal/pseuds/scrapmetal
Summary: Al contemplates things a whole lot one night, nothing too out of the ordinary. Ed's sleeping well for once.





	Comfortable Space

**Author's Note:**

> short one shot thing because i uhhh sometimes write shit at midnight. this time the shit i wrote was concise enough for me to publish lmao.

It wasn't safe inside the forest and Al knew that, but at least their sleeplessness was useful that night. Ed was in the deepest sleep Al had seen in a while, and although it was disturbed frequently with some sort of panicked movement from everpresent nightmares, as they watched they were still sure they would give almost anything to experience it again. 

 

Al vaguely wondered if they'd get nightmares  ~~ if ~~ when they got their body back. Probably. They'd been through a lot of the same stuff Ed had, plus some of their own unique experiences that they would rather not worry Ed with. Like the look on Winry's face when she'd first seen them the way they were now. Or the first time they looked in the mirror after the incident. Or the time someone died right inside them. Or the look of their own face grinning evilly back at them as it was stolen from them… Lots of things to look forwards to when their mind would finally be free to dream about it. 

 

Not that Al didn't already spend many nights trying desperately to stop their mind from wandering there. 

 

A distant rustle in the foliage thankfully distracted Al from this probably unhealthily pessimistic train of thought. They immediately looked up with a small scrape of metal on metal coming from their helmet. Though Al was grateful for the distraction, there was a reason they were looking out for disturbances in the first place. Homunculi. Which ones? They had no idea, but they did know that the two were being chased.

 

It was probably just an animal… an unusually large animal, but deer lived up here, right? Another rustle, closer this time, and then another one right next to it. Oh, and hushed voices... It was them. 

 

Al shook Ed as hard as they could while still being sure they weren't hurting him. Usually Ed woke at the drop of a hat, but occasionally he'd work himself so hard over a few consecutive days or weeks that he'd sleep like the dead for a night. It was just their luck, Al was running out of time. And options.

 

They tried not to look at the gaping cavity that was their stomach as they opened it up. They tried not to think about which organs would be sitting where they reached inside their chest if it were real as they lined the bottom of the armor with Ed’s blankets. They tried their best to ignore the little part of their mind that lived in a fantasy where they were still human that yelled at them that they should be in  _ pain  _ as they carefully set Ed onto the blankets. They tried to ignore the thought that it was like they had swallowed their brother as they latched the front of their chest back in place. 

 

Al began running as fast as they could without jostling Ed too much. God they hated when they had to smuggle people away inside themself. It felt so wrong, the guest would almost always brush against their soul seal, a touch that they could actually feel, but the feeling was like something clawing at the very core of their being. It was strange, there was suddenly something they had to protect in there, it was no longer just as easy to sacrifice as the rest of the metal that wasn't directly touching the seal. It was dizzying, their mind just couldn't compute someone being so close to them and instead it just sent shivers through their soul as the only comprehensible response. But despite all that, they sort of always wanted to put Ed in there. Al was able to protect that area, Ed would be close to them, closer than he could be otherwise. Hugs were so frustratingly intangible in this body that this almost felt like a suitable replacement. If Ed could just be in there forever they could make sure they never lost each other. It was almost the culmination of Al’s dependency on their brother. 

 

But Al had to think about running things at the moment, things like which direction to go, how to best plant their feet on the uneven ground, the best gait to adopt to avoid hurting Ed, and maybe even a way to quiet the loud  _ cachunk _ of their footsteps. The last one seemed a bit impossible, but it was better to think about that then the mixed feelings they had about the whole carrying Ed thing.

 

Train hopping wasn't something Al did regularly, but they'd be lying if they said that their brother and they hadn't had experience. Jumping on a speeding vehicle is a good way to lose pursuers, so Al threw themself into an open car door the quickest they could and finally relaxed a bit, not that they were tired. 

 

A small rustling came from inside Al and the simple noise reminded them of the endless amounts of cats they'd smuggled inside themself before. Somehow, cats were a lot easier to think about carrying than humans. Maybe it was their size, maybe it was because they didn't have sapience, maybe it was the heroics of saving a cold, abandoned stray. The rustling didn't come from a cat though, and cats didn't talk usually.

 

“Hey… Hey were am I??” Ed's voice was panicked and confused as he woke and gained his bearings, Al mentally winced. 

 

Al responded in the quietest voice they could muster, directed in instead of out. “Brother! Ed! It's fine. You're just... y'know… the homunculi caught up with us and I couldn't wake you up, I’m sorry.”

 

“Oh,” Ed said quickly, voice wavering strangely. “I think I'm going to just… Go back to sleep in here, if you don't mind.”

 

Al was surprised at the request, as Ed always seemed to hate to be reminded that there was nothing inside the armor. “No, no... you're fine.” 

 

They suspected that maybe Ed had conflicting feelings about the whole thing too.

 

“G'night…” Ed's small voice projected out of the place Al’s did, and they figured that anyone looking at the two would assume that they were the one who said it. 

 

“Night,” Al replied. The long night wasn’t over yet.

**Author's Note:**

> comment and i'll die for u... always want to know what ppl think of my writing


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